Bull’s eye for digitisation

When Cologne and Düsseldorf compete at anything, it’s always an emotional contest. And the world’s biggest digital derby was no exception. Companies and schools from both cities entered this regional battle to determine who’s ahead in the digitisation stakes. It was, quite literally, a brilliant event.

Even before the first test of strength took place, paid and earned media were in full swing, with social media, PR work and advertorials publicising the Digital Derby well beyond the banks of the Rhine. The climax came at a press conference where representatives of various industries discussed the challenges and potentials of digitisation while powerfully sounding the bell for the two live events.

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Cologne, 21.4.17: Two steps forward: Palmer Hargreaves has moved further up the current billings’ table of the PR trade journal. The agency increased its billings’ volume by nearly 20% in the past fiscal year – four times the industry average.

Palmer Hargreaves has again moved up the Pfeffers PR billings’ table – from 18th to 16th spot. With a billings’ volume of €9.03 in the past fiscal year the agency grew by 19.4% in a year-on-dear comparison (fiscal 2014-15: €7.56 million). According to the PR trade journal’s figures the average figure for the industry was 4.9%. Palmer Hargreaves had already moved up one place in the previous year’s table.

Palmer Hargreaves is now in second place in the Cologne-Bonn region. Ranked according to their keynote industries the Cologne agency is first in chemicals and third in automotive, unchanged from the previous year, but moved up from ninth to fourth in telecommunications.

“Besides the fact that we’ve also moved up the Pfeffers PR agency rankings and not just in those from W&V, I am particularly pleased that we are among the three fastest-growing agencies among the top 25 in Germany,” says Jörn Langensiepen, CEO of the Palmer Hargreaves Group and one of three managing directors of the German branch in Cologne. “Our ongoing growth confirms that the diversification of our services’ spectrum in recent years is meeting the market’s needs.”

Caption: Jörn Langensiepen is CEO of the Palmer Hargreaves Group and one of three managing directors of the German branch in Cologne.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 7.4.17: Change on the board of the international agency group – since 1 March Jörn Langensiepen has been CEO of the Palmer Hargreaves Group with its branches in England, Germany, Russia and China.

Jörn Langensiepen is the new CEO of the Palmer Hargreaves Group and has taken over from Randy Weeks, who has retired from the everyday business for age reasons but will continue to play an advisory role. Under Jörn Langensiepen’s management the German branch of the international agency group has grown at an above-average rate, which is why Palmer Hargreaves is moving its CEO base from England to Cologne. Besides his new role, Jörn Langensiepen continues to act as one of three managing directors in Cologne. The prime objective, says 46-year-old Jörn, is “to further strengthen the agency’s international clout and emphasise this asset more in the context of our clients’ increasingly global business”.

In fiscal 2015-16 Palmer Hargreaves Germany increased its billings’ volume by nearly 20% and the number of employees rose by 27.5%. “According to the current W&V ranking we are one of the top 25 owner-managed agencies in Germany,” Jörn points out. The global group employs around 160 employees at four locations and has billings’ income of €16 million. “Our success in Germany confirms our strategy of diversifying the agency more in terms of industries covered and services offered,” Jörn adds. “We want to push this process in other markets and thus boost growth at all our locations.”

Before joining Palmer Hargreaves in 2000, Jörn graduated as an industrial engineer and then worked for the business consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a client services director. He became managing director of Palmer Hargreaves’ Cologne branch in 2004 and a managing partner in 2009. In 2013 the Cologne branch of Palmer Hargreaves merged with the PR agency PR-Partner.

Caption: Jörn Langensiepen is the new CEO of the Palmer Hargreaves Group.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 29.3.17: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, has again moved up the W&V agency rankings – from 29th to 25th position. Palmer Hargreaves increased its billings’ income by nearly 20% whereas the average figure for the top 50 agencies was just 6.6%.

For the second time running, Palmer Hargreaves has leapt up the W&V table of the top 50 owner-managed agencies in Germany. Last year, the agency moved up five places. The table lists the agencies by billings’ volume, which rose at Palmer Hargreaves in a year-on-year basis by 19.4% from €7.56 million in fiscal 2014-15 to €9.03 million in the past financial year. The average figure for the top 50 agencies was 6.6%. Palmer Hargreaves employs 102 people, an increase of 27.5% compared to an 11% rise the previous year.

The reasons for the ongoing growth are the expansion of business with long-term clients such as Bayer and Deutsche Telekom and new business, with the Cologne-based agency gaining ABB, Brenntag, Henkel, Schindler and thyssenkrupp as new clients, for example. In all, the share of consulting work and digital business in the overall turnover grew at an above-average rate.

“This positive development is the result of the agency’s consistent strategic orientation in the past three years,” says Iris Heilmann, one of the three Palmer Hargreaves managing directors in Cologne. “We recognised at an early stage that the client centralisation trend also requires agencies to think holistically in marketing and corporate communications. Our clients now greatly appreciate the support we give them through a broad spectrum of services as well as our very specific sectorial know-how.”

Media Material (Iris Heilmann)

Caption: Iris Heilmann is one of three managing directors at the Cologne branch of Palmer Hargreaves.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 15.2.17: Brenntag, the global market leader in the distribution of chemicals, has launched a B2B campaign entitled “ConnectingChemistry”. Palmer Hargreaves has been responsible for the concept behind and the implementation of the campaign, and is supporting the launch with an internal campaign.

Early February saw the launch of the Brenntag Group’s B2B campaign “ConnectingChemistry”. It is the first concrete outcome of the collaboration with Palmer Hargreaves. In summer 2016, the global market leader in the distribution of chemicals with over 14,000 employees in 74 countries, decided on the Cologne-based agency to develop a campaign idea based on the brand claim “ConnectingChemistry” in use since 2015.

“ConnectingChemistry” gets to the heart of Brenntag’s core competence. Building on this, the core message of the campaign, “I’m ConnectingChemistry”, focuses on Brenntag employees and demonstrates just how much commitment they show each day as the critical interface between customers and suppliers.

The individual stories are told in videos, interviews and statements, on the corporate website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and in advertisements in selected trade journals. Employees from different business areas and work environments (purchasing, global sourcing, etc.) are portrayed in order to demonstrate Brenntag’s extensive range of services. Before the campaign’s external launch, Palmer Hargreaves had already supported an internal “ConnectingChemistry” campaign.

“With this campaign we are aiming to make the Brenntag brand a transparent and authentic experience,” say Hubertus Spethmann, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Brenntag. “So employees who personify our claim and live it out on a day-to-day basis are the most credible way of communicating our main message.”

“With Brenntag we have added to our clientele a global market leader that is a perfect strategic fit for us. We can apply our broad competency and in-depth industrial know-how for this company,” says Iris Heilmann, one of the three Palmer Hargreaves managing directors in Cologne. Besides Brenntag, the agency works for Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Henkel and Schindler in four industry segments.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 6.7.16: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, has developed the communication campaign with which Deutsche Telekom is supporting the launch of its new interactive intranet “you and me”.

“Simply do it!” – with this claim (in German) Palmer Hargreaves has created the basis for a 360° campaign to launch the interactive intranet “you and me”. The campaign aims to motivate the various target groups within the Telekom Group to test and become active users of the new platform. The campaign appeals to all employees through various online and offline channels.

For “you and me” Deutsche Telekom is merging its previously static intranet with its internal social network to create a social collaboration platform managed by Corporate Communications. In contrast to a static intranet, the new platform allows all employees to be networked and conduct dialogues at eye level – irrespective of hierarchies, departmental boundaries or national frontiers. The employees not only stay in virtual contact but can together work in groups and share information and experience. This creates a new form of inter-employee communication that is more direct, authentic and fast.

The idea of digital networking and stronger engagement is reflected in Palmer Hargreaves’ campaign concept. The agency visualised key application scenarios, such sharing knowledge or implementing projects, in the form of humorous and exaggeratedly ironic personal scenes and realised the concept on posters, info cards, flyers and presentations. Palmer Hargreaves also designed a mobile info booth as well as branded give-aways and info material to directly appeal to the employees in the various national and international branches.

To enable Telekom’s international subsidiaries to adapt the campaign, Palmer Hargreaves designed a country tool kit with corresponding guidelines and is also supporting the campaign with blog articles, interviews, mailshots and best practice studies as well as a supplement in the employee magazine “you and me”.

“The aim of ‘you and me’ is to create more effective collaboration across departmental and national boundaries and thus take a step forward to an agile company,” says Alexander Derno, the project lead in Corporate Communications. “For us this platform is the motor of digitisation in the Telekom Group. That affects every employee and lives, above all, from the support of every individual. Thanks to the campaign developed with Palmer Hargreaves, we are appealing in an individual way to each and every colleague and encouraging them to become part of this cultural change in a humorous way with likeable visuals.”

Further details of the campaign can be found here:

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 30.6.16: Schindler Deutschland has been added to the client portfolio of the international communications agency Palmer Hargreaves (PH). After a very successful start to the current fiscal year, this new account has again boosted the agency’s billings’ forecast.

Schindler Deutschland has appointed PH as its lead agency in the field of new installations (NI). Their collaboration began with an integrated campaign to launch a new lift feature. PH won the account this spring in a pitch, to which Anja Habeck, Head Sales & Marketing Management NI, had this to say: “PH presented an integrated campaign approach that got to the heart of the new product feature in a very creative and smart way. This and their many years of B2B experience along with very promising team were the reasons why the Cologne-based agency won.”

The Swiss company, which was founded in 1874, moves more than a billion people with its lifts, escalators and moving walkways. In Germany Schindler is the market leader with 3,200 employees at 60 sites and a turnover of around €600 million (2015).

“The prospects for a very successful fiscal year have further improved with this lead account,” says Iris Heilmann, one of the three Palmer Hargreaves managing directors in Cologne. “The consistent growth of the past two years has confirmed our 360° strategy, which we laid the foundations for back in 2013 when we merged our PR and marketing agencies, and which we have been able to consistently follow with the expansion of our social media and digital marketing expertise. This fiscal year we expect an increase in our billings’ volume of well over 10%.”

Through the Schindler account PH has extended its client portfolio in the manufacturing sector. The agency currently has four industry teams for manufacturing industry, ICT, life science and automotive, each including client, PR and social media consultants who nimbly work with creative, content, strategy, digital and technology experts.

Last year PH won clients from the manufacturing industry and life science sectors: various communication projects for thyssenkrupp AG and some of its business areas; and two B2B product launch campaigns for Henkel.

Internationally, the PH Group continues to grow, with the automotive manufacturer Volvo soon to be supported in after-sales communications by PH’s Moscow and Shanghai offices.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 19.4.16: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, has again moved up the W&V and PR Journal rankings. The agency has grown faster than the industry average, which is confirmation of a strategy geared to growth, integration and a broader portfolio.

Palmer Hargreaves is up five places in the current W&V billings table from 34th to 29th position. This table lists Germany’s top 50 owner-managed agencies in the communications industry according to their billings’ volume, which in Palmer Hargreaves’ case rose by 8.4% in a year-on-year comparison. In the same period the number of employees went up by 11%. The average increase in billings of all the listed agencies was 6.2%.

In the Pfeffers PR billings table Palmer Hargreaves went up one place and currently occupies 18th position with billings of €7.56 m and 88 employees in fiscal 2014-15. Ranked according to their keynote industries the Cologne agency had top spot in chemicals, third in automotive and ninth in telecommunications.

“We are very pleased that the successes of the past two years are now mirrored in the most important agency rankings for us,” says Iris Heilmann, one of the three Palmer Hargreaves managing directors in Cologne. “This positive development confirms that our integrated approach of offering corporate communications, marketing communications and technology under one roof is just what the market needs. In our networked world topics are simply growing together – something we notice in our clients’ assignments.”

For the coming year the agency is expecting to move up further in the rankings. 102 people are now employed at the Cologne site. Growth will come, on the one hand, from an expansion of the work currently undertaken for clients such as Deutsche Telekom, Ford and Bayer CropScience, and on the other hand, from new business.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 7.4.16: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, has again added to its editorial team at its Cologne branch by hiring Sebastian Mainzer, a recognised automotive and IT expert.

As a PR editor, Sebastian Mainzer will be turning complicated technical input into attractive and easily understandable content for clients like Deutsche Telekom or Ford – and thus strengthening one of the agency’s core competencies. The focal points of his work at Palmer Hargreaves will be telecommunications and automotive.

A graduate technical journalist, Sebastian first proved his expertise at Oliver Schrott Kommunikation, where he was responsible for the content of international media events for their client Daimler AG. All PR content for speeches, presentations, films and exhibits went across his desk for projects such as driving demonstrations, product premieres or tech days. Before that, he worked for LEWIS Communications as a PR consultant for IT companies and as a radio and print journalist, e.g. for WDR.

In the 20-strong editorial team Sebastian will play a decisive role in driving content and PR projects for the agency’s clients. “To do this we need editors who are not only good journalists but also have in-depth know-how of our client’s industries,” says Manfred Engeser, Palmer Hargreaves’ editor-in-chief.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 12.11.15: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, has won the 2015 German Agricultural Marketing Prize at Agritechnica in Hannover. The prize was awarded for the agency’s integrated communication campaign for Bayer CropScience Germany’s seed business. Every two years, the German Agricultural Marketing Award honours particularly creative and convincing advertising campaigns from the agricultural industry. Palmer Hargreaves received the award in the plant production category for its see(d)-worthy campaign, with which Bayer CropScience Germany launched its BayerSeeds brand in 2014.

The jury praised the stringent, cross-media approach of the 360° campaign and the high recall effect of the claim in all channels. Besides coming up with the brand name and claim, the agency also developed a high-quality text-and-imagery approach through a typographical enactment of seeds via a specially designed and photographed alphabet. In executing the campaign, Palmer Hargreaves made use of the whole range of marketing instruments and produced not just an image trailer but also various brochures, online banners, advertisements, info sheets, newsletters, direct mailshots and content for the Bayer CropScience Germany website.

The prize was presented at the biennial Agritechnica in Hannover, the world’s largest trade fair for agricultural machinery with nearly 3,000 exhibitors from over 50 countries. The publishing company Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster awarded these prizes for the 11th time in 2015, thus honouring the best campaigns in the four categories of agricultural machinery, plant production, animal husbandry and services.

For more details of the seeds campaign click here:

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Cologne, 6.10.15: Palmer Hargreaves, the international agency for marketing and communications, is focusing on content marketing and has hired an experienced journalist to enhance its editorial competency: Manfred Engeser has joined the Cologne agency’s team of nearly 90 as the new editor-in-chief.

Manfred Engeser, who comes from WirtschaftsWoche where he was a departmental head and author, takes on the newly created function of editor-in-chief where he will be responsible for building up and extending the internal editorial team and play a key role in the agency’s content marketing strategy as a member of the Palmer Hargreaves management team.

“Companies are increasingly often relying on a mix out of conventional marketing and PR. Our clients expect pronounced editorial competency for their content marketing projects to achieve their communication goals,” says Iris Hellmann, one of the Palmer Hargreaves managing directors in Cologne. “With Manfred Engeser we have brought an extremely experienced journalist on board who combines business know-how and in-depth knowledge of the media landscape with high text quality standards and a deep understanding of modern-day communication in all relevant channels.”

After graduating in political science, 47-year-old Manfred Engeser attended the German School of Journalism in Munich, worked for Süddeutsche Zeitung, was the RTL correspondent in the Bonn studio (when Bonn was West Germany’s capital) and worked for the business section of Hamburger Abendblatt. After a two-month spell as a visiting editor for the Mexican newspaper La Reforma, in spring 2000 he moved to WirtschaftsWoche in Düsseldorf where he most recently worked as an author and headed the Management & Success department.

With its latest recruit Palmer Hargreaves continues the consistent expansion of its integrated portfolio of marketing communication, corporate publishing and digital communication. The agency is meeting the future market challenges today – challenges that are increasingly necessitating the dovetailing of creative potential, content competency and technological know-how.

Palmer Hargreaves – complex solved.Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

Media Material

Palmer Hargreaves is an owner-managed agency group for marketing and communications. Some 180 employees work at four locations in Germany, England, Russia and China. We combine a broad spectrum of services – strategy, creative, content and digital – with in-depth industry expertise. Whether it’s marketing communications, PR or marketing technology, well-known brands such as ABB, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Fraunhofer Institute, Henkel, Jaguar, Land Rover and Schindler have trusted us for years. Because we are the agency for the knowledge-based economy.

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